Gleditsia triacanthos, commonly called honey locust, is native from Pennsylvania to Iowa south to Georgia and Texas. The tree usually grows up to 45m. The leaves are pinnate with up to 18 leaflet pairs and up to 2cm long, they are green in the spring and summer then turn orange-yellow in the autumn. The flowers are then followed by dark brown flattened somewhat twisted pods hanging off the branches which mature in late summer and persist till winter. The pods contain seeds and a sweet gummy substance that gives honey locust its common name.
I found this plant growing on streets of Copenhagen, fenced with tall, steel bars and the soil being covered with a plastic foil, probably to screen it from the litter. This Honey Locust was quite young therefore it was not as dense as a mature tree usually gets but the top of the tree lacked leaves. They already started to turn yellow as it was mid-autumn. I am assuming that the soil was quite moist from the recent rainfall since it was covered. I found these species along a lot of streets in Copenhagen. The dark brown pods were only visible on the top of the tree and there were very few of them.
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